Yale Honors Six Seniors and One Team with Annual Awards at Senior Reception

May 19, 2012

Brodhead, Ford, Kiphuth and Meyer Award Winners
Announced

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Six seniors and one team
were honored by the Yale Athletics Department with awards at the
annual senior student-athlete reception Saturday afternoon at the
Lanman Center in Payne Whitney Gymnasium. The men’s fencing
team earned the Brodhead Award for highest team grade point
average. Jeffrey Hatten (Farmington, Conn.) of the
men’s golf team and Talis Trevino (Marietta,
Ga.) of the gymnastics team were the recipients of the
Ford Student-Athlete Community Outreach Award. Adam Fields
(Jericho, N.Y.) of the men’s fencing team and
Abigail Nunn (Richmond, Va.) of the women’s
swimming and diving team were the recipients of the Kiphuth
Student-Athlete Distinction Award. Aleca Hughes (Westwood,
Mass.) of the women’s ice hockey team and
Michael Pratt (Garden City, N.Y.) of the
men’s lacrosse team were the recipients of the Meyer
Humanitarian Award.

The Brodhead Award is named in honor of Richard H. Brodhead '68,
Ph.D. '72, who served as Dean of Yale College from 1993 through
2004 and was on the faculty of the department of English for more
than 30 years. The men’s fencing team won the award with a
3.67 cumulative grade-point average through the fall of 2011.

In addition to Fields winning the Kiphuth Award, men’s
fencing also had an Academic All-Ivy League selection in captain
Shiv Kachru (Los Altos Hills, Calif.), an
economics major. Fields and Kachru were two of eight team members
who competed at NCAA Regionals, and Kachru was one of three who
went on to compete at the NCAA Championship. Yale finished
12th at the championship. The Bulldogs also finished
tied for eighth at the United States Collegiate Squad
Championships.

The Ford Award, given annually to the male and female
student-athletes who have demonstrated their commitment to
strengthening the relationship between Yale athletics and the New
Haven community, is named in honor of Thomas W. Ford '42, who
endowed the Yale Athletics Community Outreach Program in the fall
of 1996.

Hatten, the captain of the golf team, took the lead in
organizing weekly one-hour golf clinics for middle school children
from St. Martin de Porres Academy at Yale’s David Paterson
Golf Technology Center in Payne Whitney Gym. He planned the lessons
and made sure enough of his teammates were on site for the clinic.
Hatten also earned the team’s Widdy Neale Award this year as
the most valuable player. He was a first team All-Ivy League
honoree while helping Yale to an Ivy League championship as a
junior in 2011.

Hatten, a graduate of Loomis Chaffee, is a sociology major and
member of Morse College.

Trevino was the chair of the Yale Athletics Department’s
Thomas W. Ford ’42 Community Outreach Program. In that role,
she organized and oversaw all community outreach activities for
student-athletes. That included Youth Days each semester in which
Yale student-athletes helped local youths learn sport skills; the
Bulldog Buddies program that brings Yale student-athletes to a
local school to help students with homework; and the annual Holiday
Gift Giving Initiative in which Yale teams work together to
purchase gifts for local underprivileged youths. Trevino kept the
Bulldog Buddies program going through a challenging transition of
leadership at Troup Middle School this year, demonstrating her
commitment to the mission of the program. She also earned the
gymnastics team’s four-year senior varsity award for her
contributions this season despite being unable to compete due to an
injury.

Trevino, a graduate of Lassiter, is a history major and member
of Pierson College.

The Kiphuth Award that Fields and Nunn won is given to the male
and female student-athletes who rank highest in scholarship and
have earned two varsity awards. It is named in honor of DeLaney
Kiphuth '41, M.A. '47, who served as Director of Athletics from
1954 through 1976.

Fields, a psychology major and member of Berkeley College,
qualified for NCAA Regionals in the sabre. He is a member of Phi
Beta Kappa and attended Jericho prior to Yale.

Nunn, a history of science/history of medicine major in Calhoun
College, was one of Yale’s top distance swimmers. On June 23
she will compete in the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, a 28.5-mile
race around the island. She attended Deep Run prior to Yale.

This is the fourth year for the Meyer Award, which is named in
honor of Molly Meyer, a nurse practitioner at Yale University
Health Services who has been addressing the health needs of
student-athletes at Yale since 1975. The award is given each year
to a varsity athlete in the senior class "whose character
exemplifies selfless devotion along with compassion and concern for
their team and the community at Yale and beyond."

Hughes has been active in a cause that has helped save
peoples’ lives. For four straight years she has worked
extensively on the annual Mandi Schwartz Marrow Donor Registration
Drive at Yale. Those drives have added more than 3,000 potential
donors to the Be The Match Registry for patients with
life-threatening illnesses in need of genetic matches for
transplants. Hughes played with Mandi Schwartz ’10
(1988-2011), who passed away in April 2011 after battling
leukemia for more than two years. She has started the Mandi
Schwartz Foundation in her honor, and has also organized the annual
“White Out for Mandi” fundraiser games at Ingalls Rink
the past two seasons.

Hughes has been recognized many times over this year for her
leadership and community service. She won the BNY Mellon Wealth
Management Hockey Humanitarian Award, the Coach Wooden Citizenship
Cup and the Sarah Devens Award. She also received the Yale
women’s ice hockey team’s Bingham Award for leadership
and Brodhead Award for academic excellence.

An American studies major in Berkeley College, Hughes is a
graduate of Hotchkiss.

Pratt captained the Yale men’s lacrosse team to its first
NCAA Tournament appearance since 1992, as the Bulldogs won the Ivy
League Tournament to earn the league’s automatic berth in the
tournament. In addition to his work on the field he was also
involved in good work off the field. Along with participating in
department-wide initiatives such as Bulldog Buddies, he and his
teammates also “adopted” a pediatric brain tumor
patient and his brother through the “Friends of Jaclyn
Foundation”, a non-profit that matches such patients with
college and high school sports teams to form a support group.

Noted for his leadership skills, Pratt proved particularly
valuable this season after the team got off to a 2-4 start, helping
the Bulldogs emerge from those early-season struggles to win nine
straight games -- the longest winning streak at Yale in 22 years.
That included six wins by two or fewer goals and three in overtime,
a testament to the determination Pratt and his teammates
displayed.

Pratt has secured a coveted position at Barclays Capital after
graduation. During his four years at Yale, he has helped the team
to three straight Ivy League tournament appearances, an Ivy League
regular season championship (in 2010) and three straight years in
the national rankings. He was a first team All-New England and
honorable mention All-Ivy League selection this year, and also won
two of Yale’s team awards: the Donald J. Reape Memorial
Award, presented annually to that upperclassman who best
exemplifies the character, spirit, dedication, hard work, and
enthusiasm that Donald J. Reape gave to Yale Lacrosse, and the
Winthrop A. Smith Award, presented to that member of the lacrosse
team whose superior conditioning and team play has served as an
inspiration to his teammates.

Pratt, an economics major, is a member of Davenport College and
a graduate of Chaminade.

Saturday’s ceremony also included a welcome from Tom
Beckett, Yale's Director of Athletics, who praised the members of
the senior class for their contributions as student-athletes and as
members of the community. There were also reflections from two
members of the graduating class: Hughes and Reggie Willhite
(Elk Grove, Calif.) of the men’s basketball team.
The Bulldogs also recognized those seniors that had participated in
Yale’s Kiphuth Leadership Academy, a program that is designed
to foster leadership skills in Yale’s student-athletes, for
all three.

A crowd of several hundred was on hand for the event, including
senior student-athletes and their families along with coaches and
athletic department administrators.